Winter Park's Dvario Montgomery heads 2012 Super60 rankings

Photo by Chris Hays/Orlando Sentinel

Photo by Chris Hays/Orlando Sentinel

By Brendan Sonnone | For the Orlando Sentinel

The summer of 2010 in Central Florida is being dubbed as "The Summer of Dvario."

This offseason, Winter Park's Dvario Montgomery has been dominant in seven-on-seven passing tournaments and in the process has gone from a role player to one of the area's most promising athletes, if not the most promising.

He heads up the debut of the Sentinel's 2012 Super60 rankings at No. 1 and he's finally realizing he's actually a pretty big deal.

"It's been a pretty good summer," Montgomery said. "I've gone from a nobody to a somebody."

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound wide receiver/strong safety certainly has the makings of a somebody. After Winter Park's undefeated run during the USF Sling-&-Shoot tourney in June, Montgomery was approached by USF coaches, who told the rising junior that he'd have plenty of offers by the time he was a senior.

"There's a lot of pressure on me but it feels good," Montgomery said. "I think I do good under pressure."

Sinclair Brown, Montgomery's wide receiver coach at Winter Park, said that USF and UCF are expected to offer scholarships to Montgomery on Sept. 1, when colleges can extend official, written scholarship offers to juniors.

"USF's coaches said they will offer him as soon as they can," Brown said. "They said he could start right away for them. I think George O'Leary might pull the trigger too."

Offers from local schools would be great for Montgomery, but he is hoping from an offer from an out-of-state SEC school … on in particular.

"The school I really want is LSU," Montgomery said. "If they offered, I'd probably commit on the spot."

Montgomery's heart is in Louisiana, from where he moved when he settled in at Winter Park high as a freshman.

"My aunt told my mom it was a better life here," he said.

According to Steven Moffett, Montgomery's cousin and Winter Park's quarterbacks coach, Montgomery moved to Orlando with his family to get out of a rough area of Louisiana.

Under the tutelage of Moffett, who was a quarterback for UCF from 2003-2006, Montgomery has thrived. In his spare time, Montgomery has worked on his route running skills with Moffett, and also with several of Moffett's former UCF teammates, including current NFL wide receivers Brandon Marshall and Mike Sims-Walker.

"This has been a great summer for him," Moffett said. "He moved in with me and I've been telling him that junior year is his most important year, it'll put you on the map.

"He's shown flashes this summer. If he keeps working hard on his tools and his talents, the sky is the limit."

Last season, Montgomery was primarily a defensive player and had only three receptions on offense. However, he scored three touchdowns on all three passes he caught, giving the Wildcats just a taste of what the then sophomore had to offer.

Montgomery's limited offensive playing time came in large part because the Wildcats had an abundance of senior playmakers, forcing him to contribute mostly on defense.

"It was kind of frustrating, but it helped out. I got more prepared."

According to Brown, Montgomery had the ability to start and thrive for the 11-2 Wildcats last year.

"He could have started last year, but I didn't want to put that pressure on him," Brown said.

Teammates and coaches aren't surprised that Montgomery has established himself as a top-flight player, although the speed at which he's done so has been somewhat shocking.

"I knew he'd blow up, it was more of a matter of when," Brown said. "I didn't think it would be this summer, I thought it would be in the beginning of the season when people saw him play."

Winter Park quarterback Sam Richardson said he expected Montgomery's stock to take off.

"He's just tenacious," Richardson said. "You can rely on him to go up in the air and go get the ball. He has great range, anything within 10 feet he will make the effort to go get. Other guys might have more speed but you just know Dvario will make plays."

Montgomery said that a large reason for his progression as a receiver has been simply hard work.

"I've put in a lot of work. I entered by thinking that I was going to push myself," he said. "It's been a pretty big deal. It's taken a lot of work to get going, but you have to push yourself."